The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes

CHAPTER XII
DOWN THE RIVER

IT was the next morning that the door of the store-house in which Jack and his companions were confined was suddenly opened by a white man. He was a roughly-dressed fellow, with a shaggy beard and with silver ear-rings in his ears. “Where’s that there boy of Mr. Richard Parker’s?” said he.

“D’ ye mean me?” said Jack, “I am the only boy here.”

“Why, then, if you are the only boy here, you must be the one,” said the man with a grin. “Come along with me,” he added, “and be quick about it.”

“Am I going for good and all?” asked Jack.

“I reckon ye be.”

The other redemptioners had roused themselves somewhat at the coming of the man and were listening. “Good-by, Jack,” said one of them, as he was about to go, and the others took up the words: “Good-by – good-by, Jack.” “Good-by,” said Jack. He shook hands with them all, and then he and the man went out into the bright sunlight.

His conductor led the way down back of the great house, and past a clustered group of cabins, in front of which a number of negro children played like monkeys, half naked and bareheaded, who stopped their antics and stood in the sun, and watched Jack as he passed, while some negro women came to the doors and stood also watching him.

“Won’t you tell me where I’m going to be taken?” said Jack, quickening his steps so as to come up alongside of his conductor.

“You’re going with Mr. Richard Parker,” said the man. “I reckon he’ll be taking you down to the Roost with him.”

“The Roost?” said Jack, “and where is the Roost?”

“Why, the Roost is Mr. Parker’s house. It’s some thirty or forty mile down the river.”

As they were speaking they had come out past a group of trees at the end of the great house, and upon the edge of the slope. From where they were they looked down to the shore of the river, and upon a large flat-boat with a great square sail that lay at the landing place, a rod or so away. There was a pile of bags, and a lot of boxes and bundles of various sorts lying upon the wharf in the sun. Three or four negro men were slowly and indolently carrying the bags aboard the flat-boat.

“Are we going down the river in that boat?” asked Jack, as he descended the slope at the heels of the other.

“Yes,” said the man briefly.

On the bank at the end of the wharf was a square brick building, in the shade of which stood Mr. Simms and Mr. Parker, the latter smoking a cigarro. Mr. Simms held in his hand a slip of paper, upon which he kept the tally of the bags as they were carried aboard. Jack went out along the wharf, watching the negro men at work, until Mr. Simms called out: “Get aboard the boat, young man.” Thereupon he stepped into the boat, climbing over the seats to the bow, where he settled himself easily upon some bags of meal, and whence he watched the slow loading of the boat.

At last everything was taken aboard. “We’re all ready now, Mr. Simms,” called out the man who had brought Jack down from the storehouse.

Mr. Parker and Mr. Simms came down the wharf together. Mr. Parker stepped aboard the scow, and immediately it was cast loose and pushed off from the landing.

“Good-by, Mr. Parker, sir,” called Mr. Simms across the widening stretch of water, and he lifted his hat as he spoke. Mr. Parker nodded a brief reply. The boat drifted farther and farther away with the sweeping stream as the negro rowers settled themselves in their places, and Mr. Simms still stood on the wharf looking after them. Then the oars creaked in the rowlocks and the head of the boat came slowly around in the direction intended. Jack, lying upon and amid the meal bags, looked out astern. Before him were the naked, sinewy backs of the eight negro oarsmen, and away in the stern sat the white man – he was the overseer of the North Plantation – and Mr. Parker, who was just lighting a fresh cigarro. Presently the oars sounded with a ceaseless chug, chug, in the rowlocks, and then the overseer left the tiller for a moment and came forward and trimmed the square, brown sail, that now swelled out smooth and round with the sweep of the wind. The rugged, wooded shores crept slowly past them, and the now distant wharf and brick buildings, and the long front of the great house perched upon the slope, dropped further and further astern. Then the flat-boat crept around the bend of the river, and house and wharf were shut off by an intervening point of land.

Jack could not but feel the keen novelty of it all. The sky was warm and clear. The bright surface of the water, driven by the breeze, danced and sparkled in the drifting sunlight. It was impossible that he should not feel a thrill of interest that was like delight in the newness of everything.

About noon the overseer brought out a hamper-like basket, which he opened, and from which he took a plentiful supply of food. A couple of cold roast potatoes, a great lump of Indian-corn bread, and a thick slice of ham were passed forward to Jack. It seemed to him that he had never tasted anything so good.

After he had finished his meal he felt very sleepy. He curled himself down upon the bags in the sunlight, and presently dozed off.

The afternoon sun was slanting when he was aroused by a thumping and bumping and a stir on board. He opened his eyes, and sat up to see that the boat had again stopped at a landing-place. It was a straggling, uneven wharf, at the end of which, upon the shore, was an open shed. Thence a rough and rugged road ran up the steep bluff bank, and then turned away into the woody wilderness beyond. A wagon with a nondescript team of oxen and mules, and half a dozen men, black and white, were waiting beside the shed at the end of the wharf for the coming of the flat-boat.

Then followed the unloading of the boat.

Mr. Parker had gone ashore, and Jack could see him and the overseer talking together and inspecting a small boat that lay pulled up from the water upon a little strip of sandy beach. Jack himself climbed out from the boat upon the wharf, where he walked up and down, stretching himself and watching those at work. Presently he heard some one calling, “Where’s that young fellow? Hi, you, come here!”

Then Jack saw that they had made ready the smaller boat at which they had been looking, and had got the sail hoisted upon it; it flapped and beat in the wind. A little group stood about it, and Jack saw that they were waiting for him. He ran along the wharf, and jumped down from it to the little strip of sandy beach. They were in the act of pushing off the boat when he climbed aboard. As it slid off into the water Mr. Parker stepped into it. Two men ran splashing through the water and pushed it off, and as it reached the deeper water, one of them jumped in over the stern with a dripping splash of his bare feet, catching the tiller and trimming the sail as he did so, and bringing the bow of the boat around before the wind. Then there was a gurgling ripple of water under the bows as the wind filled the sail more strongly, and presently the wharf and the flat-boat dropped rapidly astern, and once more Jack was sailing down the river, while wooded shores and high bluff banks, alternating one another, drifted by, and were dropped away behind.

CHAPTER XIII
THE ROOST

THE sun had set, and the dusk was falling rapidly. The boat was running toward a precipitous bluff shore, above the crest of which, and some forty or fifty yards inland, loomed the indistinct form of a house, the two tall chimneys standing out sharply against the fading sky. There was a dark mass of trees on the one side, and what appeared to be a cluster of huts on the other. The barking of two or three dogs sounded distantly across the water, and a dim light shone from one of the windows. The boat drew nearer and nearer to the dark shore; then at last, with a grinding jar of the keel upon the beach, the journey was ended.

A flight of high, ladder-like steps reached from the sandy beach to the summit of the bluff. Jack followed Mr. Parker up this stairway, leaving the man who had brought them to furl and tie the sail. Excepting the barking of dogs and the light in the window, there was at first no sign of life about the place as they approached. Then suddenly there was a pause in the dogs’ barking; then a renewed clamorous burst from half a dozen throats at once. Suddenly the light in the room began to flicker and move, and Jack could see a number of dim forms come around the end of the house. The next minute a wide door was opened, and the figure of a woman appeared, holding a candle above her head. Instantly half a dozen hounds burst out of the house from behind her and came rushing down toward Jack and Mr. Parker, barking and baying.

Mr. Parker paid no attention to the dogs, but led the way directly up the flight of tall, steep steps and into the hallway. He nodded to the woman as he passed, speaking briefly to her, and calling her Peggy.

She was rather a handsome woman, with a broad face and black hair and eyes. She stood aside and the master passed her into the house, Jack following close at his heels. “Here are two letters for you,” said the woman, and she gave them to him from the table; and Mr. Parker, without laying aside his hat, took them, tore one of them open and began reading it by the light of the candle which she held for him. As he read, his eyebrows drew together into a knot of a frown, and his handsome florid face lowered.

Meantime Jack stood gazing about him at the large, barren hallway barely lit by the light of the candle. At the further end he could just distinguish the dim form of a broad bare, stairway leading up to the floor above. It seemed to be very cheerless, and he felt strange and lonely in the dark, gloomy space. Several negroes were standing just outside of the door, looking in; he could see their forms dimly in the darkness. They appeared weird and unreal, with their black faces and shining teeth.

Suddenly Mr. Parker looked up from the letter he was reading and bade the woman, Peggy, to take Jack out to the kitchen and to give him something to eat.

When Jack entered the kitchen he found the man who had brought him and Mr. Parker down the river in the boat, sitting at the table eating, while a barefoot negro woman, with necklace and bracelets of blue glass beads, waited upon him. The man looked up and welcomed Jack as he came in, and then almost immediately began asking him questions about England. The feeling of loneliness and depression was settling more and more heavily upon Jack’s spirits, and he replied vaguely hardly knowing what were the questions asked him, or what he said in answer. After he had ended his supper, he went and stood in the doorway, looking out into the starlit night. He thought he saw the dim forms of human figures moving about in the gloom, and the black outlines of rude buildings. The warm darkness was full of the ceaseless whispering noises of night, broken now and then by the sudden sound of loud gabbling negro voices. The mockingbirds were singing with intermittent melody from the dark stillness of the distant woods. His feeling of depression seemed to weigh upon Jack’s soul like a leaden weight. He could almost have cried in his loneliness and homesickness.

When Jack woke at the dawning of the next day, in the little bare room at the end of the upper hall where he slept within easy call of Mr. Parker’s voice, he did not at first know where he was. Then instantly came recollection, and with it a keen longing to see his new surroundings. He arose, dressed hastily, and went down-stairs and out of doors. Everything looked very different in the wide clear light of early morning. The buildings he had seen in the blackness of the night before resolved into a clustered jumble of negro huts, – some of frame, some of wattled sticks, – about which moved the wild figures of the half-savage black men, women, and children.

Jack walked out into the open yard, and turned and looked back at the house.

It was a great rambling frame structure, weather-beaten and gray. Several of the windows were open, and out of one of them hung a patchwork bed-coverlet, moving lazily now and then in the wind. A thin wreath of smoke curled away from one of the chimneys into the blue air. Everything looked very fresh and keen in the bright light of the morning.

A lot of negro children had been playing about the huts, some of them entirely naked. They ceased their play and stood staring at Jack as he came out into the open yard, and a negro lad of about his own age, who was standing in the door of a wattled hut at a little distance, came over and spoke to him. The black boy was lean and lanky, with over-grown, spider-like legs and arms. He had a little round, nut-like head covered with a close felt of wool. “Hi, boy!” he said, when he had come up close to Jack, “what your name?”

“My name’s Jack Ballister,” said Jack; “what’s your name?”

“My name Little Coffee,” and the negro boy grinned with a flash of his white teeth.

“Little Coffee! Why, to be sure, that’s a very queer name for any Christian soul to have,” said Jack.

The negro boy’s grin disappeared into quick darkness. “My name no queer,” he said, with a sudden childish sullenness. “My name Little Coffee all right. My fader Big Coffee – I Little Coffee.”

“Well,” said Jack, “I never heard of anybody named Coffee in all my life before.”

“Where you come from?” asked the negro boy.

“I came from England,” said Jack; “we drink coffee there; we don’t give Coffee as a name to Christian souls. Where do you come from, Coffee?”

“Me come nowhere,” said Coffee, with a returning grin. “Me born here in yan house.”

Beyond the row of negro huts was a small wooden cabin of a better appearance than the others. Suddenly a white man came out of the door of this hut, stood looking for a moment, and then walked forward toward Jack. It was Dennis, the overseer. He – unless Peggy Pitcher be excepted – became almost the most intimate friend Jack had for the two months or so that he lived at the Roost; and in this curiously strange fragment of his life, perhaps the most vivid recollections that remained with him in his after memory were of intervals of time spent in Dennis’s hut; of the great black, sooty fireplace; of the shelf-like floor at the further end of the cabin, where was the dim form of the bed with the bright coverlet; of Dennis’s negro wife, pattering about the earthen floor in her bare feet, her scant red petticoat glowing like a flame of fire in the shadowy interior; of Dennis himself, crouching over the smoldering ashes, smoking his Indian clay pipe of tobacco. As Dennis now approached, Jack thought that he had hardly ever seen a stranger-looking figure, for a pair of gold ear-rings twinkled in his ears, a broad hat of woven grass shaded his face, he wore a pair of loose white cotton drawers, and a red beard covered his cheeks and chin and throat. “I do suppose,” said Dennis, when he had come close enough to Jack – “I do suppose that you are the new boy that came last night.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “I am.”

CHAPTER XIV
IN ENGLAND

IT is not to be supposed that Jack could have disappeared so suddenly and entirely as he had done without leaving behind him much talk and wonder as to what had become of him.

One day, for instance, Mr. Stetson stopped old Hezekiah in the street and began asking after Jack. “I know nought of him, Master Stetson,” said the old man. “He always was a main discontented, uneasy lad as ever I see. Time and time again have he talked to me about running away to sea – and that, whenever I would tell him ’twas time for him to be earning his own living by honest, decent work.”

“But, Mr. Tipton,” said the rector, “I do hear talk that he hath been kidnapped.”

“Mayhap he have been,” said Hezekiah; “but I know naught of him.”

“And are you not, then, going to do anything to try to find him?” cried out the good old rector. “Sure, you would leave no stone unturned to discover what hath become of your nephew.”

“What can I do, master?” said Hezekiah, almost whining. “I’m main sorry Jacky be gone, and am willing to do whatever I can for to find him again, but what can I do?”

“Why, Master Tipton,” said the rector, “that, me-seems, is your affair and not mine. I can hardly tell you how to set about doing your own duty in this thing. But sure am I you should do whatever you can to find what hath become of your poor nephew.”

It was the very general opinion that Jack Ballister had been kidnapped, and nearly every one surmised that old Hezekiah himself had had a hand in it. If any of this talk reached Hezekiah’s own ears he paid no attention to it, but went his way either unconscious of or indifferent to all that his neighbors said about him.

Then, one morning, the old America merchant received a communication from the little attorney, Burton, telling him that if he would stop at his (the attorney’s) office, betwixt the hours of three and five in the afternoon, he should receive certain news in re John Ballister that might be of interest to him.

The old man came promptly at three o’clock, and found the little lawyer rustling among a litter of papers like a little gray mouse. He had a great pair of barnacle glasses perched astride his nose, and he pushed them up on his sharp bony forehead, where they gleamed like two disks of brightness as he turned around to face the old man. There was a moment or two of silence, broken at last by the old America merchant.

“Well, master,” said he, lifting his wig and wiping the bald pate beneath with a red handkerchief – “Well, master, here I be; and what is it you have to say to me about my nephew – about Jacky? I be in a vast hurry this art’noon, master, and wait here with great business upon my hands.”

“Perhaps so, but I dare say you have time to listen to me, though,” said the attorney. “For what I have to say concerns you very nearly, Master Tipton.”

Then he opened the lid of the desk and brought out from a pigeonhole a bundle of papers tied up with a piece of tape. “Some time ago, Master Tipton,” he said, “Sir Henry Ballister, who is an honored client of mine, gave me instructions to look after his nephew, John Ballister, who was left by his father in your ward. When the young man disappeared I wrote to Sir Henry to that effect, and received from him further instructions to inquire into the affair.”

The little lawyer had been untying the packet while speaking. He now spread the papers out in front of him, touching them one by one as he continued: “First of all, Master Tipton,” he said, “I heard it reported that, when last seen, Master John Ballister was in company with one of your own crimps and a party of redemption servants you were shipping to the Americas. I found, further, that the crimp’s name was Weems – Israel Weems. Here is a letter from Weems in answer to one from me, in which letter he acknowledges that Master John Ballister was with him the night that the servants were shipped, and that he did not again see the young man after leaving him at the wharf. Here is another communication from John Barkley, merchant, of London, relating to the cargo of the Arundel, in which it is supposed the young man was carried away. He specified that there were but nineteen servants to be shipped from this port to the Virginia plantations. These are my notes taken during a cursory examination of Jonah Doe, landlord of the Golden Fish Inn.” And so the little man continued, recapitulating his evidence, and touching, as he spoke of them, the different papers spread out on the desk before him. “The result of all this, Master Hezekiah Tipton,” he concluded, “is that it is perfectly conclusive to my mind that Master John Ballister hath been kidnapped and carried away to the Virginias. I don’t say that you had a hand in the business, Master Tipton – I would be loath to suppose so, and to so accuse a fellow-townsman and an old acquaintance; but ’tis my belief your nephew hath been stole, and I would like to hear what you yourself have to say about it.”

Old Hezekiah did not reply immediately. He sat for a while staring absently at the other as though not seeing him. Then suddenly he aroused himself almost as with a start. “Hey?” he said, “How? Oh, ay! what you say appeareth all very true, Master Burton. But – will you let me see them papers?”

“To be sure I will,” said the other; “and if you can explain the business satisfactorily, Master Tipton, and if you can satisfy Sir Henry Ballister that his nephew is safe and sound, and shall be duly fetched back again with no ill having befallen him, why, I, for one, will be as glad as glad can be.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” said the old man, almost briskly. He adjusted his spectacles as he spoke, and then opened the first paper of the packet and began slowly and deliberately reading it. Then he took up the second and gave it a like close and deliberate scrutiny, and so on through the packet.

“Well, Master Hezekiah,” said the attorney, when the other had finished the perusal of the packet, “now you’ve read these papers, what do you think of ‘em, and what do you intend to do about this business? I will report to Sir Henry Ballister just what you choose for me to say.”

The old man did not reply immediately. He had taken up his spectacles again, and was rubbing them and rubbing them with his red bandana handkerchief. “Those papers, Master Burton,” said he, at last, “bear mightily hard upon me. They make it appear like I kidnapped Jacky myself. Here be you spending all your time a-hunting up evidence to make it look like as though I had dealt foul with my own flesh and blood – and you a neighbor of mine, and I one who hath put many and many a good guinea’s worth of work into your way.”

“That last is true enough, Master Tipton,” said the little lawyer; “and, as I said before, I, for one, have no wish to do aught to harm you. Just you think, Master Tipton, – that was why I sent for you to come and see me; else I would have sent these papers straight to Sir Henry Ballister instead of showing them, first of all, to you.”

“I be much beholden to you, neighbor,” said the old man. “But these papers look mightily ill for me. Suppose anything should happen to you, and those papers should fall into strange hands; how would it be with me then? Ha’ ye thought of that?”

“Ay, ay,” said the little lawyer, “I have thought of it, and it is all arranged for, Master Tipton. If aught should happen to me, I have so arranged it that only a part of these papers go to Sir Henry Ballister. All that concerns you is cared for, so that no harm shall happen you.”

“I be much beholden to you, neighbor,” said the old man again.

“And now,” said the attorney, after another little pause of silence, “what have you to say, Master Tipton? What am I to write to Sir Henry Ballister?”

Then the old America merchant arose: “Well, master,” said he, “all this be so sudden that, to be sure, I don’t know what to say. Give me time to think over it, and then I will talk to you in full some other day. Let me see; this be Wednesday. On Friday next I’ll meet you here, and tell you all that I have to say. Can you give me so long as that?”

“To be sure I can,” said the lawyer. “Take your own time, and ’twill suit me.”

“Very well, then, on Friday next,” said the old man.

It was the next day that the little lawyer returned home by night from the King’s Arms Coffee-House, where he used to spend an occasional bachelor’s evening gossiping with his cronies over his toddy, or talking politics.

It was maybe ten o’clock when he left the coffee-house. There was a chill drizzling rain falling, and the little lawyer shuddered as he stepped out into the darkness, gathering his wrap-rascal more closely about him and turning up the collar about his ears. The night, coming as he did into it from the lights of the warm coffee-house, appeared as dark as pitch. The little lawyer took the middle of the street just lit by the occasional dim light of a corner lamp. There were few folks stirring, and only now and then the sound of a voice or a distant footstep. The far-away baying of a dog sounded from out the more distant hollow of the wet night. The little attorney was recapitulating in his mind the points of an argument he had had with the writer Willowood during the evening. He had had the better of the question, and he felt a warm glow of pleasure as he went stumbling through the night, as he thought, point by point, of the advantage he had had in the discussion. There was some one walking behind him, and it came into his mind to think how easy it would be for some one to knock him upon the head without his neighbors being any the wiser. Then he began again thinking of how he had answered Master Willowood.

The thought of a possible attack upon himself came into his mind again as he reached the mouth of the dark court upon which fronted his own house, and he paused for a moment before he turned into the black and silent street. In the stillness he could hear the rain pattering and dripping everywhere, and there was a light shining dimly from an upper window of a house further down the court.

The attorney thought he heard soft footsteps near him, and he was in the act of turning to satisfy himself that he was mistaken, when in the instant there came a crash as though the heavens had burst asunder. There was a flashing flame of livid fire and a myriad sparkling points of light. The thought had time to shoot through his brain, “What has happened to me?” – the thought and a hundred possibilities of answer, – before the sparks had vanished, and the roaring in his ears had hummed away into the silence of unconsciousness.

It all passed in a moment; there was no struggle and no outcry. Excepting for a quivering twitch, the attorney Burton was lying as though dead, a dark and indistinguishably motionless heap upon the ground, and two men were bending over him, looking down at him.